The making of Dumbledore
by SnapesJapes
Summary: Good old Dumbledore as a child or; what happened to Ariana, and why.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

**Author's note: Kind of just uploading this for safe-keeping. Review if you have comments! Thanks :)**

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When I was a child, I thought I was a superhero.

It is neither uncommon nor arrogant when little children believe these things, but you see I had good reason. I was born lucky, blessed with both wealth and talent. We had servants and I was the pet of the household, the firstborn, constantly told by guests and the maid and our old house elf that I was charming, that I would grow up to be famous. In the nursery I heard Aberforth constantly reprimanded – 'Why aren't you more like your brother?' And though I pitied him, and winced when my mother said these things, they again enforced it into my head that I was invincible.

Aberforth made a poor companion. He was three years younger than me which seemed an age. He was a baby, a dribbling little boy concerned with chewing on toys and being tickled. I was Albus, the older brother, I could count to a thousand and read entire books. We had a nurse and I used to complain to her, taking on the lofty tone of grandeur – 'It isn't that he's a bad little fellow, it's just so _boring_ for a boy like me, to be stuck up here with him,' I sighed in the affected way of a five-year old and dug my hands into my pockets and there it was again, I presented myself as Albus, the prodigal boy, frustrated because there was nobody around to match his intellect. No wonder my brother couldn't stand me.

Ariana was perhaps three and Aberforth four and both of them tiny and adorable, fair curls, almost identical in matching duck egg gowns. I was past six and had lost the tender babyness of a toddler, I was already growing into the same bony, tall physique as my father. In the nursery we constantly had visitors, friends of my mothers, and she would proudly present her two youngest. Of course I knew she loved me best in the pockets of her heart, but her friends had no time to appreciate the measure of my intelligence and only saw me on the surface and so they ignored me. It was not their place to find the beauty within. The cooed over the two little ones and of course Albus, the Boy Wonder, wouldn't put up with this. When her friends came over, I excused myself, not content to sit quietly in the corner while the other two hogged the limelight.

It was around this time I discovered the muggles.

It wasn't uncommon in those days for wealthy wizarding households to have muggles employed in the house. The British wizarding community was not very large, and mostly well-to-do, so there was a shortage of staff. We had our house elf, to my shame I can't recall her name but it was either Reedy or Beady or something along those lines. I wish I could blame this on my old age. We had a maid who had been disowned by her family and an illiterate country cook. It is sad that out of these funny, kind, loveable group the only name that sticks to mind is the housekeeper Miss Prince and that is because she was a pureblood witch. At the time they were such integral parts of my life, members of the family, yet in my mind all their faces wash together, bland and featureless.

However, I remember the muggle.

Mr Stokes was the gardener's name and he was an elderly man. He talked in riddles and never brushed his hair, he wore odd socks and buttoned his shirt wrong and we all laughed at him, the silly muggle gardener, what fools muggles were! And yet I didn't know what the word meant, I thought he was just a crazy old man. I think a more likely explanation is that the everyday confunding and memory loss spells involved when working in a wizarding household had wiped his brain clean.

There was a great fuss when his grandson appeared at the house one day. He came to the back door and I happened to be sitting at the kitchen table, working on my letters. I don't know why I was there and not the schoolroom or the nursery, but I was there with just the cook to supervise and I remember the oppressive heat of summer enveloping me, not only the sunlight streaming through the basement windows but also the hot coals of the stove. I was about seven years old and still had long hair, the curls had grown out somewhat, and sweat ran down my neck and then there was this gust of fresh air and I looked up and standing at the door was this boy. My first thought was that he was beautiful and this was true – he was dark, tanned brown from running under the sun and a fringe cut across his forehead that fell down over his eyes. Almost instantly I corrected myself, boys could not be beautiful, boys were _handsome_; he was handsome.

I was so busy staring, drinking in the way the light caught on the back of his knees, the smile that came so easy and free to his face, the nervous way he kept pushing his hair out of his eyes, I didn't even listen to what he was saying. I caught the gist as soon as I tuned in – he was Bert, Mr Stokes was his grandfather, his mother was afraid the poor old man was getting senile, she wondered if Bert could keep an eye on him while he worked, help him out…

'Oh, oh,' the cook was a nervous woman, dumpy and anxious. She was a witch but her family was poor and none too clever and she had never been to Hogwarts. 'Miss Prince won't like this one bit, oh not one bit,' she said, almost to herself and then scurried off, up the basement stairs to fetch the housekeeper. I watched as the boy visibly relaxed and wondered why a harmless old woman would make him nervous.

I realized he must be a muggle, if Mr Stokes was his grandfather. I knew nothing of the world then, the scandal of half-bloods and muggle-borns had been kept from our nursery, and thought there were two categories of people – wizards and muggles and one was born to be happy and perfect and the others were there to serve and to bumble about foolishly. Yet, I saw no difference in Bert and the wizard boys I knew. He was a good deal nicer to look at than me and he had spoken rather cheekily, like clever boys in books. The naughty ones were always the clever ones in books. He was of a slight build and his cap was crooked and his accent funny, but there was no reason to laugh at him.

'What you at there then?' he nodded at the slate laid out in front of me, leaning against the frame of the door as comfortable as you please. I flushed and looked at my lap and looked up and he was still there, waiting an answer.

'Jus' some reading and writing,' I said. How had I never noticed before how stupid and babyish my voice sounded? A big boy like Bert would want nothing to do with _me_. I couldn't meet his eyes.

'In summer? Bad luck,' he said, just as if we were already bosom friends. 'What's your name then?'

'Al-' I stopped. Albus sounded cumbersome and posh. 'Just Al.'

'Well my name's Albert, truly, so I guess we're a pair of Als, eh?'

I grinned at him and stuck my tongue between my teeth and he did the same.

We continued talking. I loved his speech, the rhythmic lilting tone to his voice, the way he peppered his words with slang, ending each sentence with 'eh?' or 'then'. I made a mental note to pick up these habits.

The cook arrived back not with Miss Prince but my mother. My heart swelled with pride when she appeared. Let Bert see her, even with her hair casually swept into a bun, with her effortlessly elegant dress, let him know that my mother stood out among other mothers, let him realise that I had been born to such people and that I would grow up just like her. I was satisfied when he took off his hat and held it respectfully over his chest and addressed her so humbly polite, as if she were royalty. He explained the story to her with much more dramatics than the first time. I seemed to feel his pain, his mother's worry and stress over the poor, elderly Mr Stokes. I believed that all the grandson wanted to do was be good and help his dear old grandfather. And my mother, I watched the stern look soften around her eyes. 'I'll talk to my husband,' she said. 'And see if we can fix something up.'

His eyes danced and he winked at me and then he put his cap back on and said his thanks and was gone. I was sure that my father would agree and I would get to become friends with Bert and everybody would know I was just as brilliant as him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

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It was a bad habit of mine, eavesdropping, but it never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with it. If I hadn't been born with a sense of entitlement it had certainly festered it's weight upon me by the age of seven and I never saw any reason that I should not have the right to listen in on my parents private conversations when I was supposed to be sleeping.

They were in the parlour, my father still in his travelling cloak, waiting for his supper to be brought in on a tray. Our house was brilliant for secret passages and hidden cupboards and I sat in one such secret spot, a broom closet, the dust settling into my nose and the comforting smell of twigs and moss soothing me. Broomsticks back in those days were very temperamental and unpopular but we still kept a few. My mother told me back when she was at Hogwarts she had been quite good but of course girls weren't allowed on the house team then. I felt injustice on her part but she had shrugged it off, a fact of life.

'I have nothing against muggles,' my father was saying. 'All well and good, they have as much a right to this country as we do, but I don't see why we should risk letting one into the house. Nobody notices old Stokes memory blanks and confunding, but we can't do that to a young boy.'

'Percy, darling,' my mother said. I could imagine her perfectly, dressed in her dinner clothes, long slender fingers resting on his arm, trying to make him see reason. 'I can't see the harm in it really. He'll be a gardener's assistant, only here a few days a week, probably gone back to school by the summer's end, and if he does happen to see Albus setting off some sparks, nobody will believe him anyways,' she told him.

'What? Why not?' my father sounded gruff. He was barely middle-aged with three young children, but my father was an old man long before his time, grumpy and set in his ways. I never could understand exactly why my mother loved him.

'Percy, darling,' she always prefaced her words with those two words, imploring upon him before she even began. 'I know what it is to be a muggle.' The words caught in her throat but then she continued on, 'The way they see magic, they see it as a trickery, an amusing story to tell children, or a fraudster's way to fool gullible old wives. If the boy said anything, everybody would assume he was causing trouble or trying to seek attention. He would be told he was lying so much that he would come to believe he was imagining things.'

I reeled back. My hands clawed the stone floor beneath me and my breath came short and fast. _My mother had been born a muggle?_ How? My mother personified the well bred witch, her knowledge of magical child rearing came easy and natural, her views on muggles were those of the reserved, prejudiced, housewife, her friends were of the same breed, stylish ladies who lunched and kept their children in long hair and frills. Hell, had she not told me herself, stories of her crazy great-uncle who eloped with a Veela, of her mother who tried and failed to brew a love potion to woo the village heartthrob, of her ancestors fleeing to Scotland after one narrowly escaped being burnt at the stake? These were the staples, the stories that made up my family history, the tales she told and retold Aberforth and I when we squabbled over which bedtime story we wanted. Had she _lied_?

This was what shocked me. My mother could not be a liar. My mother was truthful, honest to the point of fault. When she told the housekeeper that yellow didn't suit her; that was because her conscience couldn't tell a lie. There was proof. In my mind, beauty was connected to goodness and so it seemed impossible that anybody so stunning could be a liar. And yet, small things came back to me. I knew her habit of rounding the edges to make a story pretty. She would leave out facts to make things black and white, more clear cut. How often had I heard her telling a story to her friend, only to feel oddly uncomfortable when she left out details that didn't reflect well on her? But that hadn't been lying, that was…

I couldn't deny it. My mother sowed secrecy and lies into everything.

I felt rage building up inside me and had to stop myself. I knew what happened when you got angry. It wouldn't help me if the door of the closet burst open just because I couldn't control my feelings. Showing magic was a milestone in a child, just like walking and talking and holding your head up unsupported, and my mother had often told me that ever since I had been a cooing baby in a pram, I had shot green sparks from my fingertips when I laughed and red when I cried, I had torn teddy bears with my angry stare and fixed them with the stroke of a finger, turned a mouse vivid pink on my second birthday. It was worse, more powerful, when a child got upset and it would blow my cover if it happened just then. I controlled myself.

Aberforth had yet to exhibit any sign of magical tendencies and I thought to myself, with the unknowing innocence of a child, that perhaps he would grow up to be just like Bert or Mr Stokes.

Ariana was the same as I, to an extent, I knew, always magic frothing under the surface. She was a delightful baby, fair wispy hair standing around her head, long lashes framing big doe eyes. She was easily excited and I recalled once, not long ago, when she and Aberforth fought over a toy he had been thrown backwards with such force he hit his head off the dresser.

I was much better at controlling magic. In a rare fit of modesty, I admitted to myself this was very little to do with personal effort, it was just something I had been born with and it made me no better than anybody else because I had done nothing to earn it. By the age of seven I was at the stage where I could suppress my instincts but I had never been able to actually do a spell or will something to happen. And now there might be a muggle at our house who could do no magic… the thought was thrilling. A love for muggles had firmly rooted itself somewhere deep inside me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

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When Bert was hired (for of course he was taken on, my mother could convince anybody of anything) he became quickly part of the fabric. Odd-job boys were a common feature in most households and he slotted neatly into to ours and I told him something of my secret perhaps a year after we first met.

He was working and I was reading. I was always reading and he was always working. Mr Stokes was really too old to do anything and though Bert was really too young to take on such responsibility, he cared for the entire garden almost single-handed. 'Magic is almost limitless,' I told him earnestly, in a low voice. 'I swear it's true. My father does work for the government, but it's the _magical_ government you see.'

'Nice story Al.' He wasn't paying proper attention, he was weeding a flowerbed and I was in a canvas chair. I slouched down further. My shirt rode up over my stomach and my plimsolls dug into the grass.

'If it was true, you'd have everything,' he said. I heard the hint of admiration in his voice. He rocked back on his toes and wiped his dirty hands on his trousers. 'Magic and money. You're so clever as well, you could do anything.' Admiration had turned to jealousy but I was not listening, only embellishing and imagining what he said. 'When you've got your castle, save a flowerbed for me and my granddad to weed,' he said and went back to work, calloused fingers plucking in the soil.

It was that which sealed it. I had Bert firmly placed on a pedestal, the embodiment of everything which I valued in a person, and what he was saying rang true. What was there to stop me? At the tender age of eight years old I had everything a person wanted in the world – parents rich enough to keep me in books, a pleasing nature, natural aptitude. Ambition took hold in the depths of my stomach.

What would I do? Minister of magic was the first thing that came to mind but in those days that position meant less, and anyways, it wasn't enough. Ministers came and went, they were quickly forgotten and those that were remembered were usually not remembered kindly. Headmaster of Hogwarts? The same applied for that and I knew even less about Hogwarts than I did about the ministry. I would have to do more than that. I needed to discover or invent something fabulously useful or complicated or…reform the system, change the way people viewed the world. It didn't matter if my mother was not an angel, that my father was irritable, that I looked odd, I had the sense to know that a bright future was running toward me. I glanced at Bert, kneeling in the dirt, performing a mindless menial task and knew that he could do just as well as me if only we had been born different. But we hadn't and so he couldn't and so I would lead a revolution and he would clean the garden. The thought was oddly poignant and I congratulated myself on my lyrical prowess.

You must understand that it wasn't just me, it was the time. You cannot imagine how different things were back then. Railroads were being laid fresh, Victoria was queen, America was on it's 20th president, a czar sat in Russia, men still wore top hats and the aeroplane was still a dream in somebody's distant mind. It was a time of great invention and hope, a new era of freedom in the muggle world and this was mirrored in the wizarding world. There were of course those that clung to tradition and pomp but most people were racing towards tomorrow with whole hearted joy. Everyday somebody was proving somebody else wrong, the wizarding laws we take for granted were being hammered out, signed and sealed and argued over and fought for. It was a time where everything and anything seemed possible and I was just one boy who was going to ride the wave.

Without going into detail I talked to Bert of my ambitions. I didn't bring up the subject of magic again with him, knowing that to him it sounded like I was talking gibberish and lies, but I talked of how people would remember me when I was dead and how the world would come to see me. He listened and laughed, encouraged and teased in equal measure. He was good for me I think; he kept me in check. I still came across relatively down to earth, I think, no matter how arrogant my thoughts ran, and this was thanks to him.

Of course, we did more than just talk. We climbed trees and had snowball fights and went sledding and dared each other to do outrageous things and had arguments and traded childish insults and blew raspberries at each other when words failed. He introduced me to his friends in the village who were all around our age and they played a curious game somewhere between the French _boules_ and ten-pin bowling on the village green which I grew to be quite good at, as well as football and cricket and a range of other muggle passtimes. I loved all things muggle, though I was careful to lie enthusiastically if my mother asked where I'd been. I never knew quite what drew me to muggle life but being with Bert was just so enchanting.

I saw how the other boys crowded around him when it came to pick teams for games all yelling – 'Pick me! Pick me!' and it was always a smug grin of satisfaction that I wore when he picked me first. It wasn't because I was the best, it was because we were best friends and I was _worthy_ of him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

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I guess, I was going to school that September of 1892, and things were coming to an end between us soon anyways. Bert was no longer the thin little boy that had come to the back door those years ago. His sleek hair had long been buzzed short, his shirt sleeves didn't hang over bony elbows but remained properly rolled up. He was a man of practically fourteen now - still short but now he was stocky with layers of muscle and acne dotted over his face. I could no longer say he was handsome, but I knew the flashing of his eyes and the smell of his breath and something jumped inside me when he walked near. I wondered if there would be anybody for me like Bert at Hogwarts. I hoped so because I had found it so painful as we had spent less time together and the thought of never having the same bond again made me feel desperately alone.

I made a decision to savour every moment of our last summer together as friends. It had begun well with a week of comfortable sunshine, both of us working side by side in the garden and then that Saturday we had played the bowling game on the village green. Our team won and it seemed like time was swimming past in slow motion, the cheers and the grins seemed frozen. I wondered if there was anything more joyous than that moment. 'Are you going home now?' I asked Bert. I knew vaguely where his house was, a small cottage shared with his parents and five siblings. His father and brothers worked as farm labourers.

'Nah, I need to pick up granddad from your house. You know yesterday he couldn't find his way home? I found him half a mile the wrong direction and my mum threw a fit.' It wasn't funny and yet we laughed. Mr Stokes' behaviour had become more and more absurd over time, his speech more of a muddle, his attire less predictable.

We called goodbye to the other boys and began to walk toward my house on the edge of the village. Mould-on-the-Wold was not a particularly big place and yet it took us a half hour to walk from the village green to my house because we went so slow. We were going to plan the summer out.

'Shall we play again tomorrow?' I asked.

'I got church in the morning.'

'Oh.'

'Don't you?'

'Ah, no.'

He sprang back as if I had said I'd murdered somebody.

'How?' he demanded.

'I just don't.'

'You have to go at least _sometimes! _I thought you lot went over to the Vale for mass, you never said that you-'

My knowledge of muggle God was hazy so I kept my mouth shut.

'You've en't been baptised?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'You're going to hell.'

I knew that only as a swear word and had given little thought to the meaning.

'It's true, I've heard loads about it, and your soul depends on it,' he continued. He looked at me seriously; weighing me up, full of doubt. 'You'll have to come with me tomorrow to church.' I shrugged and stayed quiet while he rambled. He seemed to be seriously disturbed that I had no religion but such things didn't configure into wizarding life. The rest of the walk home passed in silence as Bert grappled with the unholy state of my soul, as though it were a burden which pressed upon his shoulders. Usually he hung around the house as long as he could but that day he hurried off with old Stokes like his collar was catching fire. I had promised to meet him at the crossroads and to wear my Sunday clothes. 'What Sunday clothes?' I asked. Sunday was not a particularly special day for me.

'Oh it just gets worse!' he exclaimed and threw his arms into the air. 'Just wear your best clothes and, and brush your hair!'

I watched him down, back toward the village, puzzled and curious.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

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Back inside, the nursery was quiet. Aberforth was facing the corner and Ariana was crying. 'What happened?' I asked. There was a cake on the table and I reached a finger out to taste the icing and my mother slapped my hand away. She had Ariana on her lap and she said, 'Aberforth bit her. Can you believe that Albus?' She looked pointedly over her shoulder and continued, a bit louder, 'A big boy of eight years still biting his little sister. That's what the muggles do.' I wanted to correct her – I had never seen a muggle bite somebody - but I let it drop. I knew what she really meant. Usually when wizard children got angry they did magic they had no control over and yet, Aberforth had lunged at Ariana rather than accidentally setting her hem on fire or making her lose all her hair.

Aberforth began to whistle as if her words had no effect and stuck his hands into his pockets and his chin in the air. I admired that about him but my mother rolled her eyes and sighed. 'Go on, you boys need to go and get changed. I invited the Black's over for tea.'

Aberforth groaned. 'Do we have to?' Ariana said, looking up from her tears.

'Yes. And _be nice_, Ursula was not impressed when you knocked that jug all over poor Arcturus. And Albus remember to tell Mr Black how much you're looking forward to Hogwarts.' I nodded while Aberforth grumbled. I did feel sorry for him and Ariana. The Black's were a powerful family, rich and envied by all society. The father was Headmaster of Hogwarts, the wife a snob, the five children rude and sneering for the most part. Aberforth had to put up with Arcturus because they were the same age and Ariana was lumped with Belvina, the only girl, who was a thoroughly horrid child. I was more lucky; Phineas, the one my age, was quite companionable. He was certainly more fun that any of the other boys I knew, not including Bert of course. Mould-on-the-Wold and it's surrounding areas had just a small knot of wizarding families. There was us hovering somewhere between upper and middle class, a few other faceless families and only one boy my age called Harvey Ridgebit, a fat little lump who was alright but got irritating very quickly, always going on about dragons. Phineas was witty and if he had lived closer rather than in London, we would have been very close.

The Black's arrived in style on a flying carpet, which were a luxury for the crème de la crème, all of them in matching travelling cloaks, even little Cygnus who couldn't have been more than three years old. They were quite plain in looks, rather haughty looking with thin faces and eyes spaced far apart. It was all down to centuries of inbreeding, according to my mother. Phineas was probably the most attractive, not least because he never seemed to look down on others and he was blessed with curls, big cherubic golden-red curls which he wore long.

We ate tea, all twelve of us, out on the back lawn. It was one of those early summer evenings; the air was heavy with the smell of flower blossom and grass cuttings, the sky blushed scarlet and purple, the food tasted better. The adults and Sirius, the eldest, sat at the table talking and discussing life and politics once the food had been cleared away and the cake eaten. We children occupied ourselves. We voted to play a chasing game, one that features in every part of the world under different names – cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, cat and mouse. One person was chosen as 'muggle' and everybody else 'warlock' and the muggle ran after the others trying to catch them. When the muggle caught somebody, the other child became a muggle as well.

Ariana, always clever even though she wouldn't turn seven until December, decided to spice up the game. Aberforth had been selected as muggle and she blindfolded him with a length of ribbon and turned him. 'Now try catch us!' she said. Everybody laughed as he ran dizzily, tripping over the uneven ground, trying to judge where the warlocks were situated. 'Now he looks like a real muggle,' Arcturus said, doing an impression, crossing his eyes and sticking out his tongue.

'Muggle, mu-ggle, dir-ty muggle,' Belvina said in the singsong way of little children, stretching each syllable into two. Something pressed against my heart, something didn't feel right. I glanced at Phineas and I saw my feelings reflected in his eyes. The sight of these children with so much sneering in their voices was distressing. I swallowed and rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet and then said, 'I don't feel very well, I think, perhaps maybe I'll sit out on this game,' and Phineas followed me to sit back at the table with our parents and Sirius.

We sat in silence for a few seconds, Phineas lost in thought as he stared at the others. They all taunted Aberforth, getting close and then dodging away. My brother was completely disorientated without his vision and getting progressively frustrated.

'I don't think…' Phineas paused. 'I don't think it's quite right the way it is,' he said in a quiet voice, so his parents wouldn't hear.

'Me neither. It seems a bit cruel, the way they laugh about muggles.'

He seemed surprised that I was sympathetic; I suppose he was so used to hearing only anti-muggle opinions that mine came as a shock. He was encouraged by my response and continued, 'It's just, I saw in a book once this picture of a muggle city somewhere on the other side of the world, and it was _huge_! They have all these things _instead_ of magic you see, so really they don't miss not having it at all and I don't see how they could have so many gadgets and inventions if they're as stupid as my father says, there must be at least _some_ who are intelligent and-'

His little speech, which I suspected had been building up inside for quite some time, was cut short by Sirius. Sirius was the eldest, fifteen, and I supposed it was boring for him with nobody his age around and he had been listening to our short conversation. 'What are you saying Phineas?' he said. Disgust was clear in his voice. 'What, are you some blood traitor? Want to find yourself a nice muggle to settle down with and raise a litter of half-breeds?'

'Sirius, don't raise your voice,' it was his mother, Ursula, who spoke in her tight, controlled manner.

'You should hear what he's saying mother!' Sirius said. 'All this rubbish about muggle's being clever and not even needing magic.'

'Well you'll never get into Slytherin with that attitude,' his father said. 'You know I was head of Slytherin before I became headmaster. I don't think there's been a Black who _wasn't_ Slytherin.'

'I was a Slytherin myself,' my mother said, trying to ease the tension as everybody stared down at poor Phineas who had gone bright red. 'But Percival was Ravenclaw, so who knows how Albus will turn out.'

'Well, anything except Hufflepuff,' Mr Black said. 'Honestly, I had one girl into my office just before the summer, Sacharissa Tugwood, you might know her father Percival, I think he works in the department, well she was sent to me and-'

Whatever the Hufflepuff had done we did not find out because there was a sudden cry from Aberforth. He had torn his blindfold off and leapt at Arcturus and was sitting across the other boy's chest pummelling him with his fists. There was an instant fuss, my mother and Ursula leaping up, Aberforth dragged away kicking his feet, Arcturus sobbing. Ariana was set off as well; she was always prone to tears.

We moved inside after that and Aberforth was sent to his room and my parents seemed thoroughly ashamed of him. I guessed it was not so much because he had fought back, but because he had hit with his fists and not his magic, as if he were a muggle. The word used to float around the shadows of our house – _squib, squib, squib_. Six was the common age when magical ability was supposed to have shown itself and here he was, eight the past April and no obvious signs.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

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I dawdled after the Black's had left. I didn't want to go upstairs where Aberforth would no doubt be sulking in our bedroom. He had a habit of blaming me when he got in trouble even when I hadn't been involved. However I couldn't avoid him long. I was in the kitchen eating a cold sausage leftover from breakfast when the maid appeared. 'Off to bed Albus,' she said, whooshing me on. I dragged my feet up the stairs but paused again when I heard voices. My parents were in the parlour.

My eavesdropping habit had gotten worse if anything. I think it was just that I never wanted to be left out; I needed to know what everybody was thinking all the time. I wished I had thought to conceal myself in the broom closet earlier but it was too late now. I crouched beside the doorframe. They were discussing Aberforth. 'I suppose it happens regularly enough,' my father said with a great sorrow in his voice. 'It's just such a pity, when Albus and Ariana are so precocious.'

'He might not be, after all,' my mother said. The tinge of hope in her voice seemed pathetic. I knew what they spoke of – they had suspected for a long time that Aberforth would turn out squib.

'Well, no matter,' my father said. 'We'll love him and care for him just the same.'

'Of course, of course,' came the murmured reply. 'But that's not the problem. It's fine when they're children, but what will he do when he grows up? What would happen if I died suddenly, if you died? Ariana would be fine, she's so pretty and sweet she'll have men queuing to marry her. Albus would be fine, I don't think we could keep success from him if we tried but Aberforth… Where can a squib fit into our world?' Her voice rose as she tried to keep from crying.

'I heard in Beauxbaton, you know the French are much more progressive, they have a program for squibs,' my father began earnestly. I imagined him pushing his spectacles further up his nose; they always slid down when he got excited. 'It might do Aberforth good to get abroad, round off the rough edges, because really he's-'

And then he stopped, because he could talk until tomorrow and it wouldn't change anything and my mother knew that and she burst into tears. It was so sad I couldn't listen, I crept away up to the bedroom. Aberforth was not waiting up as I had thought he might, he was asleep, his bed a twin of mine, just an arm's stretch away. Asleep he looked less of a goblin – his odd puckered up face was smoothed out and he seemed happy. He always looked as if somebody had just spat on his shoes when he was awake. I felt a great sadness for him, for my mother. It was so unfair.

* * *

I had arranged to meet Bert at a few minutes before noon but first, I decided to do something nice for my mother. I saw how upset she was at breakfast, I saw the shadow that passed over her face when she looked at Aberforth and I thought she could do with the morning to herself so I resolved to keep Aberforth and Ariana quiet so she could go back to bed or go for a walk or read her book. I thought the best thing to do would be to bring out one of the jigsaws, we had a number of enchanted ones for children where a manner of magical creatures moved and danced while you made it up. Ariana settled at once to it, tucking her fair hair behind her ears and pursing her lips in concentration. A beam of sunlight seemed to shine directly on her and she was really very pretty, she had the pale pointed face of a woodland nymph and big sombre eyes. There were only about eighteen months between she and Aberforth but it seemed more because she was so delicate and him so ragged and rough. He was well-behaved for a few minutes and then began to mess around. He jammed two pieces together that clearly didn't fit and broke up some of Ariana's work and huffed. 'Be good,' I said. 'Mum's kind of upset because – well… she's not well, so give her a break.'

'I'm not _stupid_ Albus. I know they think I'm a squib.'

'That's not true-'

'Yeah _it isn't_. They don't know anything, just because I'm not a _know-it-all_ doesn't mean I can't do magic.'

'So you can?'

'I can, I just don't want to.' He stood up rather suddenly and then sat down again. Ariana kept her eyes to the ground, doing the puzzle. An idea gripped me, to see if I could prove it once and for all.

'I don't believe it. You're a dirty good-for-nothing squib, just like Arcturus said.'

'He is not!' Ariana was on the verge of tears, as usual.

'I am not!' His face had gone red.

'You are. You're going to be the caretaker at Hogwarts while me and Ariana go to class,' I said, standing up. I was on a roll. 'You can clean up all the dragon dung or work with the house-elves or-'

Aberforth grabbed at me, his usual habit of fighting with his fists, but I neatly sidestepped him and walked backwards where he couldn't reach me. He leapt to his feet and I continued, 'Ariana and I will look away when we pass you in the street and mum will pretend you've gone to live in China and-'

'Shut up!'

'Stop it Albus!' little Ariana on the ground with her hands over her ears was what set him off and I was thrown backwards and his hands kind of slashed the air and a long cut appeared down my arm, little pearls of blood appearing instantly. I crashed into the nursery table and I knew my back would bruise and yet I didn't care. Aberforth was standing dumbstruck, the colour slid off his face, his eyes wide. Silence and then, 'Did _I_ do that?' he asked.

'You did it! You did it!' I screamed with laughter and Aberforth stared at his hands. I threw the door open and called for my mother. She had to see it, she would be so happy, she would know she had three perfect children.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

* * *

I suppose my mother had heard the bang and so she was already hurrying toward us. 'What was that? What happened?' she asked.

Both Aberforth and I began to speak at once but I suppose all she was able to take in was my arm covered in blood and Ariana crying on the ground and the smell of smoke and two chairs overturned. It took some time to calm everybody down but we got the message through and her eyes shone with happy tears and she kissed us all and called for my father. 'We knew it all along,' he said and shook Aberforth's hand. My brother was still awestruck with all the attention, with the knowledge that he could be a proper player in our society. And my heart sang because I had set it all off.

'I think this deserves a present,' my mother said. 'Some pet you can bring to Hogwarts, how about your first owl?'

'I think the Blacks' cat had kittens recently, maybe we could see-'

They were interrupted by a fresh bout of tears from Ariana.

'She's just a bit upset from all the fuss,' I said. I didn't want anything to ruin the moment for my brother.

'Take her out for a bit of fresh air and she'll be fine,' my mother said so I walked downstairs with Ariana. Her sobs had turned to hiccoughs. I caught sight of the clock in the hall and stopped. 'I've got to meet my friend,' I said, thinking of Bert. 'You'll be alright. All better now?' She swallowed a last tear and nodded.

I changed into a suit and combed my hair. The curls had grown out and now I had a messy head of auburn tangles, parted down the middle. I took my cap and ran out to meet Bert. We walked into the sun dappled churchyard where the congregation was filing in. People took religion seriously in those days and I liked to see all the familiar village faces so serious and devout, children shuffling uneasily in shoes that pinched their feet, women with their long skirts sweeping over the gravel. 'I'll tell you where you can sit,' Bert said, hanging back behind his family. 'We're on time so we can relax, the minister is always a bit late.'

There was a small group of boys our age packing up the game of marbles they'd been playing. One, an ugly young man I recognised as a particularly aggressive football player, lit up a cigarette. 'Int you going inside Keane?' Bert asked. His accent was always more pronounced in the company of the village boys.

'Nah.' Keane blew a ring of smoke.

'Me either.' Another voice piped up, a weedy boy, always hanging on the edges of the group. 'Church is boring.'

'Yeah.' A third boy nodded. 'I've got my fathers' gun, we can go down and see if there are any pheasants down by Cotter's field.' He was Robert Collins, Bert's best friend at school I knew, a year or two older than me and the son of the grocer. He had flashing eyes and girls loved him. I glanced at Bert, wondering if he would want to go with his friends. 'If I can get out of minding the babies I'll go later,' Bert said. Then he said to me, 'C'mon, we'll be late.'

He sat with his family in another pew and I sat in the visitors' pew in the back. I liked the service. The songs were easy to pick up and the words I didn't understand floated over my head. I liked the message of the sermon and the quiet, dusty smell of the Bible. I could see why muggles went for this sort of thing. The church was a typical of it's time with uneven walls and long, thin windows, but there was a peculiar, humble beauty about it. I could daydream, relive the moment when Aberforth had done magic, imagine what it would be like to start Hogwarts, think about shooting woodpigeon or quail or pheasant with Bert and his friends later that afternoon. It was strange how it always came back to Bert. I glanced at him sitting ramrod straight beside his grandfather and the rest of his family. His acne had gotten worse and yet, I never noticed it. When I saw him I only saw his good parts.

We walked back afterwards in companionable silence. We were going to go first to my house and then to Cotter's field nearby, after we took some food from the pantry. I don't think I've ever been so happy as I was on that day, the joy of the world resided in my heart, my hands felt so free and light they seemed to float up beside me. I was close to eleven years old, I was brimming with potential, the map of my life was streaked gold. And I guess that's my only excuse for what I did next, for the thing that tainted every day afterwards with rot. I suppose that is the problem with perfect summer days - they're a breeding ground for horror.

His face was so beautiful, even marred with acne as it was, and he was laughing at something I said and his teeth shone and we were walking so close I could almost smell his breath. I kissed him. It was so quick I could hardly be sure it happened, it was dry and light, just a touch of the lips and for many years after that, I used to think that if only I hadn't done it, everything would have been perfect. I always found it easy to forgive people because the grudge I carried for my ten-year-old self was too heavy to leave room for any others. If only I had a cold that day and decided not to go to church, if only Bert had tripped when I'd leaned to kiss him, if only a horse and cart had appeared so we were forced to opposite sides of the road, if only I had thought for a fraction of a section before I acted. If only, the two innocent words that speak so much, that bottom line of a life dominated by one moment.

* * *

**Author's Note: I _definitely _stole that line 'I suppose that is the problem with perfect summer days - they're a breeding ground for horror' from somewhere, I think it's at the start of a book but I don't know where to start looking. If anybody recognises it, tell me.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

* * *

He hit me so hard I felt like half my face was bleeding or on fire. Something tightened within me. I knew I had made a mistake, of course I knew, and I was on the ground and looked up into his face and his mouth was gaping open, eyes a storm, and I scrabbled upright and ran. He was bigger than me, he was thirteen and me still ten, but I ran with the frightened haste of a hunted animal and he did not follow. My heart was in my throat, pulsing out of my mouth and I didn't stop running until I was in the back lane behind our house and I vomited on my shoes.

My mind, which was usually so precise and thoughtful, seemed to stumble over itself. The image of Bert's face was frozen and it seemed like I was watching a thousand things at once, trying to think of all the possibilities. He might run after me and corner me and beat me up, we might never talk again, we might forget about the whole thing and go back to how it was, we might pretend things were normal but feel awkward. All these scenarios were spinning around my head and superseded over all them was that unexplainable _flipping_ feeling I'd felt when I'd kissed him. What was that?

Ariana was just inside the back gate. It was odd that she still looked the same when I felt so different. She was holding the housekeeper's wand, it took me a few seconds to recognise it. 'Mummy and daddy have bought Aberforth a goat,' she said. 'I think if I practice my magic I could get one as well.' I ignored her and left her down the back of the garden waving the wand about and muttering her own made-up charms. I felt the need to tell somebody about what had happened, but who was there to tell? I walked into the kitchen and there was Aberforth kneeling in the corner by the stove with this darling little kid, a baby goat, long-haired and adorable and he had such a tender expression on his face. 'She's all mine,' he told me, looking up at me. He stroked along her neck lovingly. 'I'm going to look after her, all by myself,' he continued. He paused, he was trying to find the words that could show how happy he was. 'Dad said he would build me a pen at the back of the garden.'

I felt very confused and disorientated, as if I was drunk. Everything was mixed in my mind so that Bert was a goat and Aberforth was teaching Ariana magic and I felt so muddled. I had the cheek to think that this was one blemish on a beautiful life, that bad things happened sometimes, that I would feel normal again in a few hours. But the kiss was only a catalyst.

I paced the house and decided, the best thing to do would be to talk with Bert and tell him it was a joke. If he wanted to believe it enough then he would.

I began to walk out the back garden again, not even knowing where to look for him, past Ariana squatting in the weeds poking the dirt with the wand, through the gate and then paused. If I was Bert, where would I be? He wouldn't have gone shooting with his friends, not when he still felt so embarrassed and mixed-up. But perhaps he _had_ because being with normal, non-magical boys who didn't go around kissing one another was the best way to forget. It was Cotter's field or his house and I didn't particularly want to knock on his door so I set off. Our house was on the border between the quiet mendacity of Mould-on-the-Wold and the sweet glory of the English countryside. Cotter's field was a bit further out but I walked with nerves speeding me up and I saw them very quickly, stretched out by the stream that wove it's way from a forest through the edge of the field and brimmed with trout. I recognised Keane's hulking figure standing stock still in the shallow water, waiting to catch a fist with his bare hands. The skinny boy who wasn't as popular as the others was rolling an egg around his hand and I knew they hadn't hunted any birds but instead raided a few nests which was quite commonly done at the time. I always found this slightly repulsive but it didn't worry quite as much as the sight of Bob and Bert sitting with their feet in the stream discussing something very seriously.

I walked up closer and Bob looked up. 'See who it is!' he said. His voice sent chills down my spine. 'You know what he done to Bert?'

'What?' It was the little skinny one, jeering him on. He stood up, leaving the eggs resting on the ground, he faced me. I knew he was hoping that they would all be making fun of me and he could join in, as one of the bullies rather than the bullied.

'Tried to kiss him and Bert hit him round the side of the head.'

Keane stood out of the water and even with his Sunday trousers rolled up to his calves and a tie loosely knotted around his neck he still looked menacing. He was coming for me. I can take a small grain of pride in the fact that I didn't run straight away. I tried to tell my lie – 'You know I was just joking,' and then Keane was looming above me and I could already hear the little skinny boy's raucous laughter and Bob was rolling up his sleeves. I caught one glance at Bert and then I ran. I ran towards my own home and they chased me. I wasn't particularly athletic and my heart beat in my chest and the fear ran shivers down my arms. They were coming to get me and everybody would know what I'd done, how strangely I had acted. I was afraid. The back gate was closed and I could see Ariana some distance away and I yelled for her but she was in her own little world, trying to enchant the bees, I stuck an arm through the gate and struggled with the catch. I quickly saw it was hopeless and turned, wondering if I had time to run around the front of the house and I had started back onto the road and suddenly there they were.

It was the little one who was the most bloodthirsty. His punch, the first, didn't sting very much and I didn't cry or scream. But Keane had the strength of a horse and Bob was calculated and quick and there was always one holding my arms back. My mind found Bert and I wondered where he was, was it my imagination inventing his face looming down on me? Or was he really there, powerless to stop them? 'Oh stop, stop!' he eventually came to my rescue, pushing the others away. I felt woozy and I hoped it was over, that my punishment had happened and they wouldn't tell anybody.

He leant over me and again I could smell his breath and see the tears, the fear, creeping around the corners of his eyes. I knew his face so well and it pained me to see him so wound up. I wanted to reach up and smooth his forehead out but my body felt dead. 'Are you alright?' he asked. He was panting. I heard one of the others jeering and he pulled back. 'Run,' he told me and there was real hatred in his voice. 'Just go away!'

'_Bert_,' I heard the others complaining as my legs began to move, they were annoyed he had let their Sunday entertainment get away. When they beat somebody, and it happened often enough, they could stay at it for hours until the unfortunate soul was black and blue all over. I wanted to get away, not just from the pain but from the shame I felt when they looked at me. I didn't know where to go. I could have gone around the front of the house but I had no desire to go home and I had no way to explain the cuts and bruises forming on my skin. So I ran. I left them their by our garden gate and ran.

I was never athletic and my arms and legs tired, my lungs seemed spongy and my breath came fast and heavy. But I was beyond caring. Psychical torture paled in comparison compared to what was going on in my mind.

There came a time when I was forced to return home, because it had gotten dark and my stomach was caving in from hunger and I had nothing left to vomit. I didn't want to worry my parents, I didn't want them to wonder why I had been out so long. I was slower on the return journey, walking now my legs had turned to stone. I saw nobody on the country roads, not a cart or a bicycle or a villager. It was only when I drew closer to our house that I saw somebody – Bert, sitting outside the gates. He leapt up when he saw me.

'Al,' he said, my name seemed to distress him. I was too scared to make things even worse by speaking so I stayed quiet. 'I – I didn't want to.'

'Didn't want to…what?'

'Your sister.'

'What?'

'They kept saying that since I had kissed you, I should cancel it out by-'

'Ariana.' My hands curled into fists.

'I didn't! I didn't. We saw her and she was-'

My mind supplied the image for me. Ariana in her organdie, with the housekeeper's wand, dancing about, hair loose and long and there were muggles behind the hedge, already angry and waiting for somebody to take it out on. Anything odd…anything different they hated it.

'What- what happened?' I said. My voice didn't sound like my own, it was so measured and emotionless.

Bert didn't get a chance to reply, his words were lost, overpowered by the scream. It was long, rising in an arc above the house, a shriek that made the hair all along my back rise in unison, that made my heart stutter. 'Ariana,' I said. My eyes were drawn up to the windows, wondering where she was, what had happened to her.

'Al, I'm sorry, I-'

I looked back at Bert and I had never felt such rage, it burst out from under my skin and suddenly he was on the floor, writhing, his own screams lost as he clutched his face in agony, his eyes rolling back into his head, clawing at the ground and hitting his head off the stone.

'MAKE IT STOP!' he was convulsing uncontrollably. My anger turned to horror as it sank in that _I_ was causing this. I back away in horror, fingers scrabbling to get the gates open as I ran. I seemed to spend my whole life running.

It was so odd to be back in the house. I ran up the stairs. I wanted to dive into bed and pull the eiderdown over my head and never look up again. But I couldn't help myself, I had to see Ariana. I could hear more screams, quieter now, and sobbing, wailing. I followed the noise and opened the door to Ariana's bedroom. I saw for a split second my sister, her eyes opened too wide, lying on the bed. She looked almost exactly as Bert had when my magic had turned on him, she was rolling from side to side and things around her were flying through the air, exploding and crashing. She was looking at my parents and yet her eyes were blank, she was being tortured by her own thoughts. I only saw it for a second before my father shouted, 'OUT!' and slammed the door. It was enough to curdle my blood.

I went to my bedroom, reeling in shock.

'And where have you been?' Aberforth asked. 'Do you have any idea what's just happened? It's all your fault, for leaving her.'

And it was.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

* * *

The next day the house was deathly quiet. Ariana had stopped her screaming and the odd outbursts of magic had stopped and she lay deathly pale in her little bed, curled into a ball, sobbing. You cannot imagine the shame, the guilt, the terrible aching sadness I felt. Ariana was a perfect child, so pretty with thin, light hair in a neat Alice band, big eyes and an upturned nose and a delicate disposition. But she was sweet and hilarious and cunningly wicked. And that was just gone and there was this beast in her place.

'She'll be alright in a day or two,' my mother said when Aberforth and I went to see her. My father wore a scowl on his face.

'You think she can recover from this?' he said. 'If I knew who those boys were I would tear them apart limb from limb.'

'Percy don't talk like that.'

'It's true! Look at her, doesn't it hurt you to see her like that?'

Usually my mother tried to keep their fights private but they were both so worn out with Ariana and so irritable from lack of sleep and worry that she hadn't the will to do so. They began to argue and Aberforth and I slipped away.

We sat, side by side on the kitchen floor, with his goat beside us on the floor. We were never close but I took comfort in his presence then and it was calming, sitting in the warmth when my bones felt so cold, the only noise coming from the goat as he fed it from a bottle. 'Do you think she'll be alright?' I asked.

'No.' That was Aberforth, always blunt. 'It was me who pulled them off her, I saw what they were doing. She'll never be okay.'

'Did you…did you see who it was?'

'I thought I recognised one, but they started to run and I couldn't chase them, I had to look after Ariana.'

The guilt made me leaden inside. Secrecy usually came easily to me, I was good at keeping my face blank and hiding my emotions, at keeping a hundred secrets at once, but this was different. Every time I spoke my confession was bubbling beneath the surface, I knew it was only a matter of time before I broke down. 'I know who did it,' I said. That voice that wasn't me had returned.

'What? Who?'

'The Keane boy and Robert Murray and that little ratty boy who throws stones at the horses.'

'How do you know?'

'Bert told me.' This, at least, was partly the truth and that suddenly seemed a wonderful thing. If only I could be cling to the truth, be proud of it.

'We must tell mother and father.'

'No. At least, not yet,' I said quickly. 'They might do something stupid.'

I made him promise, but I should have been more careful. Promises with Aberforth meant very little.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

* * *

That afternoon Ariana took a turn for the worst and I couldn't stand being in the house, I had to get out. The house was filled with tension, with words unsaid, with my little sister who would never be the same and all because of me. As I walked out the front gate, I couldn't stand going down to the back garden where it had all happened, I went over in my head all the things I could have done differently.

The list went as follows;

_I could have stayed with her yesterday morning or put her inside instead of leaving her when I went to mass._

_I could have run anywhere but home when Keane and the others were chasing me._

_I could have taken the beating instead of running._

_I could never have provoked Aberforth into doing magic._

And of course, the most important, number 5 – _I could have chosen not to kiss Bert._ That was the problem that had set all the others off, the thing that made no sense when I looked back on it. Why had I done that? Why had I ruined everything?

I walked until I could block out my feelings.

It was late when I returned home but I knew nobody would notice except perhaps Aberforth. Meals had been forgotten in the fuss and we had mostly been snacking on bits and pieces but nobody had much of an appetite. The servants were nowhere to be found, I assumed my parents had sent them away, but I walked in through the back door and the kitchen was not empty. My father was sitting there, big grey purple shadows under his eyes, his skin too big for his frame and hanging in folds. He was tinged grey all over, the despair of the world on him. He looked up at me and then his gaze fell. My eyes rested on the bottle of whiskey in his hand. I had never seen him take more than a measure at a time, at Christmas or on Sundays after lunch, but the bottle was now half-empty.

'I killed them.'

'Who?'

'Them that hurt her.'

'How – how did you know?'

'Aberforth.'

Another thing to regret, telling Aberforth about Keane and Robert Murray and the third boy, who were all now dead.

'They're dead now and I didn't even try to hide it, killed in their yard, in the street and the shop. They'll be here for me before morning.'

He looked at me, but he was looking through me, his eyes bloodshot and ghostly. I stood, not knowing what to say, hating the way everything had turned out. I felt a warm little nose nuzzling my hand, Aberforth's goat, sweet little face turned up to mine as if trying to tell me something. I backed out of the room.

* * *

Later that night I crept downstairs. I hadn't eaten all day and I was sick of lying in bed wide awake, knowing Aberforth was just across for me, also unable to sleep. We had spent the evening sitting around not doing anything. My mother had been in with Ariana and we weren't allowed to see her. Mother said that any little noise or excitement disturbed her and she would do things she couldn't control and that scared her even more and began the screams and shrieks.

The house was so quiet. I felt cold, even though it was summer and the weather was beautiful. A little pool of light showed itself underneath the kitchen door and I realised my father must still be in there, drinking alone. I was going to turn around and go back upstairs but then I heard the pitiful bleating of Aberforth's goat. The sound was so unnatural, something compelled me to open the door and there was my father, sprawled on the floor with his face somewhat bloated, eyes fluttering halfway open, and in one hand he had a knife and the other…rat poison.

The word suicide didn't come to mind until much later, all I knew at the time was that I had to save him. I stood rooted to the stop for a second, wondering whether I had enough time to run for my mother, when I saw my father's wand. I had stolen it often enough to know that I could sometimes do spells with it and now, I really needed to. I took it off the table, breathing heavily, looking from side to side wondering what to do. I saw the goat.

Aberforth's darling kid goat… I knew what I had to do.

I put it to sleep with a spell I had never even heard of, but I aimed the wand and it fell unconscious. There was so much blood on the floor but as soon as it's stomach was open, I pointed and, my voice a shadow of itself, said '_Accio bezoar_' and then shoved it in my father's mouth, massaging it down his throat. There was on tense heartbeat and then suddenly he rose up off the ground, gasping for air, the colour returning to his face. He fell back with a clatter and I looked at him, my hands covered in blood, a dead goat on the ground beside me, and he looked at me with the eyes of a child.

I hadn't really saved him at all because he died a year later in Azkaban.


	11. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

* * *

Skip forward a month or two. My birthday had passed without occasion and I was beginning at Hogwarts. We had moved house, from our comfortable upper-middleclass with timber slatting and two porches and a rolling garden rimmed with hedges, to a grotty little cottage in Godric's Hollow. I had arrived at Hogwarts in robes that my mother had taken out a loan for, determined that I wouldn't look shabby in comparison to everybody else. She had spent the latter part of the summer largely ignoring everybody, lying in bed sobbing into her pillow, refusing to do anything but drink tea and cry. I was leaving Aberforth alone to care for Ariana.

I didn't talk to anybody on the train. Sometimes I found it hard to talk at all, when there was so much inside I could not say. I was glad to escape the house but I wasn't particularly looking forward to Hogwarts. Already I had earned the glares and suspicious stares of the other students.

But once there…Hogwarts was a breath of fresh air. It was so different in those days. Now students wear plain black robes and uniforms underneath, but back then we wore full suits and dress robes each day, and changed for dinner and wore top-hats and addressed each other formally and were told we were the future. It was glamorous, luxurious, a soft reminder of the way I had lived when I had been happy, a long time ago.

I was sorted into Gryffindor, and for the first time in so long I felt a rush of happiness and a smile came to my face.

I sat down and the previous boy who had been sorted, Elphias Doge, was a Gryffindor as well. I sat down next to him and for a second, in a trick of the light, I saw Bert with the same acne marked face and broad shoulders. For a second my heart soared even though the sensible part of my brain knew it was not, could not, be my Bert, whom had ruined me forever, and who had been ruined in return.

* * *

**Well, that was my short little story. I've had this lying around for a few years now. Please tell me if you enjoyed. I tried hard to make dates accurate and I think everything fits with canon, but if you notice anything feel free to tell me.**


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